CVE-2025-52948: Junos OS: Specific unknown traffic pattern causes FPC and system to crash when packet capturing is enabled

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.9 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-07-11 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-755

Description

An Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) processing of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an attacker, in rare cases, sending specific, unknown traffic patterns to cause the FPC and system to crash and restart. BPF provides a raw interface to data link layers in a protocol independent fashion. Internally within the Junos kernel, due to a rare timing issue (race condition), when a BPF instance is cloned, the newly created interface causes an internal structure leakage, leading to a system crash. The precise content and timing of the traffic patterns is indeterminate, but has been seen in a lab environment multiple times. This issue is more likely to occur when packet capturing is enabled. See required configuration below. This issue affects Junos OS: * all versions before 21.2R3-S9, * from 21.4 before 21.4R3-S10, * from 22.2 before 22.2R3-S6, * from 22.4 before 22.4R3-S7, * from 23.2 before 23.2R2-S3, * from 23.4 before 23.4R2-S3, * from 24.2 before 24.2R1-S1, 24.2R2.

Affected products

Juniper Junos OS: before 21.2; 21.2, 21.2-r1, 21.2-r1-s1, 21.2-r1-s2, 21.2-r2, 21.2-r2-s1 (+71) — fixed in 21.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Juniper Junos OS 21.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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